Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,120

did not respond, allowing his silence to ask the questions. Why?

“She belongs to me,” was the answer.

Belongs to him? Though he could plainly see the man’s reversion to a primal lifestyle (despite the glasses on his face), Trung was stunned by the man’s cavemanlike assertion that he now owned the woman.

He scanned the forest, looking for others, and saw none. But he knew the man was not alone. One man on his own could not create such a stink as now swirled around them. “She is important to the people of Vietnam,” Trung said, doing his best to hide his growing animosity.

“Of that I am sure,” the man said. “But you cannot have her.”

Trung squinted as he took aim at the man’s head, but the subtle change in facial expression did not go unnoticed.

He tracked the man as he ducked, never losing aim as his finger applied pressure to the trigger. Despite being focused on his quarry, he saw a shadow shift in his peripheral vision. Something was rising up behind the man.

Trung’s finger depressed the trigger and three shots rattled off, but his aim was sourly off now that he, too, was diving to the jungle floor. A thick-bodied hairy woman had risen up behind the man, spear in hand, and had let it fly with a mighty heave. He heard the shaft cutting through the thick air as it slid past his cheek. It struck, with a wet smack, dead center in the back of the man who had been covering the group’s rear position.

The soldier fell to the ground silently, his spinal cord severed.

Chaos erupted as his twenty-nine remaining men opened fire, first at nothing, then at the large hairy bodies emerging from the forest. They came from the trees and the jungle floor simultaneously. The first to arrive were already dead—falling from above as they were plucked from the trees like rotted fruit. Each landed with a thud and an explosion of brush, filling the air with plumes of crushed leaf litter.

Trung squeezed off a quick three-round burst. One of the creatures pitched forward, tumbled, and fell, sliding to a stop at his feet. But the stumbling body had concealed the man’s approach. He charged forward, spear raised high in one hand, a knife in the other. The look in his eyes was wild. Frenzied. Any sense of the man willing to let them leave after a simple conversation had vanished.

Then the spear was in the air and Trung was ducking once more. But he was not the intended target. The rod struck the man next to Trung, knocking him off his feet and pinning him to a tree.

Trung’s eyes widened. The savage man was a warrior.

With a whistle, the major general called six of his men to his side while the others continued to fire into the encroaching mass of bodies. His plan would take timing, finesse, and sacrifice.

A pause in the gunfire signified clips running dry. The soldiers were adept at changing the spent clips out for fresh ones, but the few-second delay was all the enemy needed. The white man raised his knife in the air with a battle cry. This was the moment Trung was waiting for.

He released the grenade from his hand with a sideways toss, letting it bounce, mostly concealed, across the jungle floor.

“Get down!” he shouted to his men. Before ducking behind a fallen tree, he saw, with pleasure, the caveman’s spectacled eyes widen. The man shouted a warning and dove to the side, but the battle cries of his brutish brethren and the reports of the VPLA weapons drowned out his voice.

The explosion sent shrapnel and a wave of pressure into anyone standing in range. Trung stood from his position without pause. When the caveman and his brethren picked themselves up and rejoined the battle, they would find Trung and nine of his men gone. The old tunnel discovered on a Vietcong map would lead them past the battleground. They emerged like snakes from a den, the sounds of battle behind them.

They had breached the front line. And the city gates were next.

Trung left the majority of his men behind. They would either win the day or die in combat—the way of the Death Volunteer. It was a price they all accepted, and often the cost of success. When the jungle cleared, he knew the sacrifice had not been made in vain. A village had been constructed at the base of a mountain, which rose high above them.